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SfAM Winter Meeting 2012

12 January 2012
SfAM Winter Meeting 2012

The venue for this year’s Winter Meeting was once again the Royal Society, London.
The day was composed of a plenary session, including the Denver Russell Memorial Lecture, and two parallel afternoon sessions; Microbiological safety of imported food and Microorganisms and climate change.
This Year’s Denver Russell Memorial Lecture was delivered by Jean-Yves Maillard, Cardiff University. Jean-Yves gave a fascinating lecture on the use of biocides both in the past and the present asking whether their current usage is a cause for concern. Jean-Yves was then presented with a piece of commemorative artwork by President Martin Adams. Following this, Caroline Willis introduced us to the ‘Microbiological safety of imported food’ session with a lecture on Monitoring the microbiological safety of imported foods. Next up, Andrew Nichols gave the introductory lecture to the ‘Microorganisms and climate change’ session with a talk on Climate change and communicable disease: what are the risks.
After a delicious lunch we separated for the two parallel afternoon sessions. Session A covered many microbiological aspects of imported foods from the banal to the bizarre and concluded with a commercial perspective on the safety of imported foods. Whilst Session B provided an engrossing look at microorganisms and climate change, from the impact of climate change on pathogens to how we can utilize microbes to help fight climate change.

The day was once again a huge success with delegates commenting on the high quality of the speakers and the science presented. The trade show was very busy with many delegates visiting the stands during lunch and coffee breaks.

 

 

Our media policy

This is the era of applied microbiology with stories every day in the media about avian flu, MRSA, C. difficile and MMR to name just a few. A measure of the respect that SfAM's Communication team has gained is that journalists contact us for background briefing and explanation as well as the names of microbiologists they can contact.

We will:

always do our best to provide facts, information and explanation

if speculation is required, explain the rationale behind that speculation

desist from hyping a story - whether it is the journalist or the scientist doing the hyping